SEPTEMBER 14

MARKETING TECHNOLOGY WE LOVE: HUBSPOT, TRENDKITE, SPROUT SOCIAL

While it’s a poor artist who blames his tools, the wrong marketing technology can actually make your job of increasing awareness and creating leads much more difficult. The right tools, though … Oh, the right tools can make the sky sing and your campaigns soar. OK, not that. But the right tools can make automating processes easier and provide data visibility that can make your campaigns more effective.

Finding the right tools, though, can be difficult. The world of MarTech is a crowded space. To help you in your search, we thought we’d highlight some of the tools we love.

HubSpot

I have been a digital marketing practitioner for the majority of the past decade, and in that time I have come across a lot of tools to facilitate all the different things a digital marketer does. You’re a social media practitioner, an advertiser, a copywriter and blogger, an email marketer, a designer, an SEO expert, and an analytics reporter. The one tool that I have found that does all of these things in one place, and does them seamlessly well with a strategic approach, is HubSpot. In addition to the software itself, which continues to add features and functionality that improve the lives of marketing and sales folks, HubSpot enables professionals to develop their skills through ongoing education certifications and a vast knowledge base.

Since 2012, HubSpot has enabled me to ensure the work that I do is effective, with invaluable insights from an easy to use interface. Plus, the charts are pretty. Now I get to empower our clients to make the most out of their sales and marketing efforts with HubSpot, and it’s exciting to watch what they do next in the MarTech space.

Kady White, digital account manager

TrendKite

TrendKite is a platform that quantifies PR’s impact to help professionals optimize their PR strategy. The platform’s dashboards and reports display analytics that help you hone in on quality coverage, easily report on it and strategically shape your approach to PR and digital. Once you add your client “search” using key terms, competitors or media outlets, TrendKite creates an entire dashboard outlining Share of Voice, Sentiment, Total Mentions and much more.

At Idea Grove, we love using this platform to track our PR efforts throughout each quarter and, ultimately, use the data to present to clients. We are able to not only track our efforts but competitor coverage as well, helping us stay knowledgeable about our client’s industry and strategize on how we can amp up media coverage to increase the client’s Share of Voice.

Donna Brannin, senior account executive

Sprout Social

Sprout Social consolidates all things social media into one, user-friendly interface. From scheduling posts to campaign monitoring and quarterly reporting, Sprout Social provides the tools you need to help make organic social efforts strategic and efficient. It’s the ideal social media tool for any agency or larger enterprise because you pay per profile and not per person, so multiple people can login and obtain different levels of access without any additional charge.

The reporting dashboard is completely customizable and provides various metrics, including clicks, engagements and impressions. With Sprout Social, you can also see what posts performed the best on each platform, so future social plans can be more strategic based on what our clients’ audiences prefer to see.